Balance, Homogenisation and Encounter Design: The Problem.

[CapricaLangley]

The era of sandbox MMO has apparently come to an end. Despite the emotions many of us felt when exploring and living worlds like Vana’diel and the original Azeroth from WoW, we are now deep in the era of pure theme park, something which is not bad per se. Nonetheless, these days I tend to reminisce some nuances of that particular world: in between leveling parties, camping NMs and other amenities, the thing I miss the most is job “imbalance”. When there’s next to zero balance, or it just isn’t the main focus of combat designers, everything becomes unique, from Teleports being WHM exclusive to proper support classes, just like traditional RDM, from pursuing legendary items like Optical Hat/Scorpion Harness to the huge range of buffs and debuffs avalaible back in the day.

But I don’t want to plunge into memories, I know that XIV has never been like that. What I noticed is that, lately, a good 50% of discussions in this forum tend to gravitate around balance. Everyone is pursuing balance, players and devs alike: the vast majority of the people involved in the game constantly want jobs tuned up or nerfed, while at the same time keeping the gameplay experience simple, fun and interactive, which is a really ambitious objective. Does pure balance even exist? I don’t think so: min/maxers and hardcore dedicated players will always find a meta or compile a tier list; it happens in MOBAs with tons of different heroes, it happens in fighting games with 70 chars like Super Smash Bros, of course it will happen in a MMO. Shadowbringers 5.x is arguably one of the most balanced patch to ever grace FFXIV. What did we sacrifice for the sake of balance?

Identity was left behind in favour of homogenization which, again, is not bad per se. It’s the easiest way to pursue balance, make every job’s potential roughly the same, relegating the differences just in small numbers. If you think about it, the jobs currently struggling are the ones who coulnd’t be traditionally homogenised because they had the most unique identities: SMN, the only pet class, NIN, the first ‘pure support and utility’ class, and DNC, which basicallly stole the balance problem from Bards. Again, I don’t think homogenisation is necessarily a problem, but we learnt from other MMOs that it’s somewhat dangerous, and it may hurt the ‘feeling’ of the game in the long term (think about WoW subscribers going downhill and the impact of the classic version announcement), because class identity is a big part of MMOs success. Either way, pursuing balance through homozenisation is the indicator of a bigger problem, a problem I think is crucial when thinking about the future of the game.

And that problem is the staleness of encounter design. Every single choice in terms of balance, class design and homogenisation was taken just because the devs sticked to the same encounter model from day 1. Imagine a different world: in a world with mob kiting, ranged jobs would be mandatory; in a world where healers are needed to separate ways from the rest of the group, RDM heals and actions like raise would be a hundred times more meta definining than DPS numbers. Don’t get me wrong, I like combat in this game, but I think the current system with circular/square arenas and (interesting and challenging) mechanics is basically gutting class design. Every class is tailored around DPS numbers because every activity in the game gravitate towards this dicretion. By patch 5.1 we will probably be playing 3 jobs instead of 3 roles, the differences being just in rotation nuances; the question that worries me is: what will happen in the next patches? Will we ever reach the desired “perfect and purely balanced” world, where in return it doesn’t matter at all which job you choose to play?

There are so many things that I’d like to discuss. We could talk about the loss of class identity that healers are living, being bloated with healing skills that are unable to find space in high end content because current encounters aren’t crafted with that in mind. We could talk about how much streamlined is the progression system, with no space at all for choices and nuances, or about how every utility and every job’s little shade is rapidly becoming nothing but a number. I don’t know if i’m living a sort of “middle playtime crisis” or something, I just wanted to share and know your opinion. Also, sorry for my poor english.

TL;DR: Homogenisation may seem the answer to balance problems, but instead it’s the indicator of a much bigger problem: the lack of variety and nuances in encounter and activity design.

[VictorTheed]

On the topic of balance I always thought that if there is this really good job and this really bad job then please don't bring goood job down to be closer to bad job but instead bring bad job up to be closer to good job.

I agree with u on homogenisation, that would suck, when I play DRG I want it to feel a lot different then when I'm playing RDM and the difference not being just melee/ranged, I want it to feel like a new experience and so far for me personally the game achieves that.

[Dzian]

TL;DR: Homogenisation may seem the answer to balance problems, but instead it’s the indicator of a much bigger problem: the lack of variety and nuances in encounter and activity design.

Homogenization and over emphasis on simplicity and accessibility is the reason so many games franchises have died over the years, and also why so many newer games essentially flop or under perform. Players just don't want simplicity, they want depth and engagement.

Back in February or there abouts Yoshi even said the future of the Final Fantasy franchise needs to move away from trying to cater to mainstream audiences and go back to being made for the fans. Because virtually every game that tries to go mainstream ends up losing everything that made it popular in the first place. those engaging and interesting game play elements are lost in exchange for simplicity or accessibility.

Games like Tomb Raider where you have skill trees that are useless. Skills to conserve or recycle arrows from your bow that are ultimately useless because ease and simplicity means there quivers of arrows or boxes of bullets everywhere you look.

Or Dead Space where they simplified it by making every weapon use the exact same ammo and totally destroyed the sense of tension and fear for survival that made the first games so popular. Resident Evil again where the later games have moved away from survival horror can't waste a single bullet into run and gun kill everything that moves because ammo is practically infinite and that resulted in a massive decline in it's popularity. It's one of the reasons they went and did the remake of Resident Evil 2 to take the series back in that direction.

It's even more prevalent on the mobile side of things. Where Google and Apple wanted there platforms to be serious games contenders but most people just aren't putting the money into mobile games because they're virtually all so dull simple and shallow. Sure you can say 200 million people played angry birds or whatever. But for how long? It was a fun game for an hour or so but got boring incredibly quickly.

It's also why many of the so called underdogs take the industry by storm because they don't cater for mainstream audiences or over simplify. They stay true to what makes them great games and gamers love them for it. A recent example would be how God of War was so much more popular and amazing than anyone ever expected. Generally shunned as a fairly niche game by many media outlets and yet it blew everyone away with how successful it was.

But yeah so many games flop these days because people just don't want to spend there money on shallow and simple games that have no depth or are just not rewarding to play. There are more people playing games than there ever has been but on the flip side people are generally buying much less of them because it's all the same stuff and thus all those once deep and engaging franchises end up meeting a terrible demise because everything players loved about them gets taken out in favour of simplicity and accessibiltiy that no one actually wants.

Even 14 suffers from this. It can look nice and pull in players without too many problems. However it has always struggled to keep players engaged for any length of time as it really does get old and stale very quickly. This is because of over emphasis on simplicity and ease which comes at the cost of fun, depth and engagement.. There's no sense of fun, accomplishment or engagement in beating a fight that is borderline impossible to lose. That means players end up getting bored quickly or disengaged from the game.

It's also not gripping or engaging when the story tries to paint a picture of an incredibly dire situation where things seem all but hopeless only for you to faceroll through it and completely destroy the atmosphere and tension the story tried to create. has been a problem ever since ARR. the Garlean empire almighty and powerful yet an entire army cant even scratch a single player running around there castrum owning the place.. does not lend any merit to the story and instead often leaves players feeling disconnected from it and the game as a result.

But I think that's partly what Yoshi was referring to back in February when he said the franchise needs to go back to the fans.

[Connor]

I totally agree that variety and nuance have been thrown out the window for FFXIV because of the extreme rigidity of encounter design. I also feel like maybe the community is taking the ‘perfect balance’ thing a little too far without clearly understanding the pros and cons (and there are plenty of both). This extremely rigid style of battle content has severely limited the scope with which they can develop ‘unique’ classes.

To use the most extreme examples, a DPS with healing capabilities is functionally redundant from the get-go because of damage output predictability being extremely easy to plan around for healers without much effort. For this same reason, not DPS and Support oriented style healer would be functionally redundant if they ever tried to design one (why waste a spot on a healing/support focused job when you can just stack DPS oriented healers). Support jobs (e.g 2.0/3.0 Bard in concept) are, unsurprisingly, functionally redundant, because the absolute predictability of encounters means that any support that isn’t a direct damage increase is worthless, especially if it drops the users dps. If it does increase damage it’s overpowered and has to be removed. They can’t even have shared resources on this kind of thing for balance; players why would anyone ever use a support skill (e.g Minne / Paean) over any damage increasing skill because fights can be planned to the last detail to absolutely minimise all requirements that aren’t DPS, meaning that utility/ support is useless by definition (why would you ever want to use an ability like Minne when you know healers absolutely should not need the extra healing in if the first place)

That said, the community is extremely resistant to the idea of unpredictable fights or encounters that utilise more unique mechanics that aren’t the same couple of attack patterns with different animations that we’ve been seeing for around 6 years now. The developers have already tried making content that deviates from the standard, and it’s been consistently and universally despised. The most salient cases of this are the original Steps of Faith, the original Pharos Sirius and Eureka. They might have been awfully designed (that’s a different debate) but the fact is that they’ve tried making an effort quite a few times in the past to make ‘unique’ content, and it’s always met with extreme resistance. The sad thing is that the result is the developers either nerfing the content in Oblivion (Steps/Pharos), or they just flat out give up and pretend the content doesn’t exist anymore (Eureka)

If anything, I imagine any abilities that exist that aren’t a direct damage increase to the user will be removed more in future. We already have Red Mages and Summoners calling for Vercure/Verraise/Resurrection/Everlasting Flight to be removed (and subsequently replaced with direct damage abilities). Bards begged for Ballad / Paean / Minuet / Paean to be removed for the vast majority of 2.0/3.0 because of the damage loss associated with them. Ninjas seem to want the removal of Trick Attack so that they can have their personal DPS increased. Hell, people are now still asking for Scholar to become a DPS healer and have the utility side removed to compensate. I think a lot of Scholars would be extremely happy if Sacred Soil was deleted for Shadowflare and Adloquium/Succor were deleted to become DoTs

My tl;dr is: the community have been asking for non-damage abilities to be removed from the game basically since it came out. As a result the devs are like ‘let’s just make content never need anything like this ever again’. So encounter design naturally becomes heavily focused on damage output (because the only mechanic they have left to use). The community is exposed to encounters that are basically just four floors of DPS checks for like 6 years. Then the community naturally comes heavily preoccupied with DPS (because it’s the only mechanic that matters now)

[Acidblood]

That said, the community is extremely resistant to the idea of unpredictable fights or encounters that utilise more unique mechanics that aren’t the same couple of attack patterns with different animations that we’ve been seeing for around 6 years now. The developers have already tried making content that deviates from the standard, and it’s been consistently and universally despised. The most salient cases of this are the original Steps of Faith, the original Pharos Sirius and Eureka. They might have been awfully designed (that’s a different debate) but the fact is that they’ve tried making an effort quite a few times in the past to make ‘unique’ content, and it’s always met with extreme resistance. The sad thing is that the result is the developers either nerfing the content in Oblivion (Steps/Pharos), or they just flat out give up and pretend the content doesn’t exist anymore (Eureka)

I don't think this is entirely true…

Taking Eureka as an example, most players checked it out, some enjoyed it, some didn't, but the general feedback seemed to be that while it was OK it was basically just the same old FATE grind, only instanced! Many ideas where put forward to on how to make it more engaging and unique, unfortunately (whether due to stubbornness or simply being too far along to change anything) the developers seemed to ignore all of it and Pagos happened. They did then listen to feedback, and including some ideas of their own (logos actions) created Pyros, which by all reports was a significant improvement. Hydatos was much the same (it seemed a bit rushed) but the inclusion of Baldesion Arsenal proved to be a winner (at least for those that made it that far).

So the community is willing to accept new content, SE just need to get better at designing it (to be useful and engaging), presenting it, and aligning it more with player expectations, which for better or worse does include a certain level of accessibility and approachable difficulty; with the best example of this of course being PotD.

Sadly, I have to agree that the combat system has fallen too far at this point to create anything truly unique and the best we can hope for is perhaps some interesting duty actions or side content (like PotD, Eureka Pyros, or Baldesion Arsenal). I hope I am wrong though, and I hope Yoshida does want to create a path forward that will give FFXIV a bright future (and perhaps a life beyond its main storyline), and that 5.0 has been a wake-up call to the downsides of chasing the illusion that is 'balance'.

[TcomJ]

Wow, I would never expect someone would literally have the same issue with the game direction as I do. Thought I'm the loner here.

But to add my take alittle bit, linearity and homogenization are the bane and a disease to any RPG.
FF12 and 13 are the biggest clearest example of that.

FF12, with no job distinction among characters whatsoever, the game becomes ridiculously bland. No thinking required, reward for being strategic is non-existent. This has to be fixed by Zodiac Edition.

FF13 is where the linearity for casual friendly taken to an extreme. You can basically just spam the same ability over and over and walk....straight to clear the game. lol
It was the worst FF series no argument among FF fan community. All RPG dies because of it. FF14 won't be any different.

So I hope they stop with the homogenization and simplification. It's pretty clear as a bard main.
And I hope, these ideas of homogenization and linear no longer take root. Especially if it's coming from WoW players that flocks to this game recently, should reject this suggestion of homogenization, simplification, and linearity entirely and immediately.

[Connor]

I don't think this is entirely true…

Taking Eureka as an example, most players checked it out, some enjoyed it, some didn't, but the general feedback seemed to be that while it was OK it was basically just the same old FATE grind, only instanced! Many ideas where put forward to on how to make it more engaging and unique, unfortunately (whether due to stubbornness or simply being too far along to change anything) the developers seemed to ignore all of it and Pagos happened. They did then listen to feedback, and including some ideas of their own (logos actions) created Pyros, which by all reports was a significant improvement. Hydatos was much the same (it seemed a bit rushed) but the inclusion of Baldesion Arsenal proved to be a winner (at least for those that made it that far).

So the community is willing to accept new content, SE just need to get better at designing it (to be useful and engaging), presenting it, and aligning it more with player expectations, which for better or worse does include a certain level of accessibility and approachable difficulty; with the best example of this of course being PotD.

Sadly, I have to agree that the combat system has fallen too far at this point to create anything truly unique and the best we can hope for is perhaps some interesting duty actions or side content (like PotD, Eureka Pyros, or Baldesion Arsenal). I hope I am wrong though, and I hope Yoshida does want to create a path forward that will give FFXIV a bright future (and perhaps a life beyond its main storyline), and that 5.0 has been a wake-up call to the downsides of chasing the illusion that is 'balance'.

Yeah, I don’t mean to suggest that it’s entirely a community thing for why people are rejecting this kind of content. A good concept is one thing, but if it’s poorly designed and not fun to play,, people are going to dislike it regardless of how good the concept is. Especially when said content is channeling aspects of gameplay that haven’t generally been received well (like the dependence on FATEs in Eureka, even though I don’t think anyone has really been asking for more FATE lol)

[Emeke]

I just wish they would break away from the memorization arena schtick. Even dungeons are so boring now. A straight path leading to an arena, then another straight path leading to another arena. They don't even try to mask it anymore like they did with the older dungeons. Even the raids are just boss fights now.

[Edax]

Homogenization and over emphasis on simplicity and accessibility is the reason so many games franchises have died over the years, and also why so many newer games essentially flop or under perform. Players just don't want simplicity, they want depth and engagement.
.

And yet the Old School Runescape is still going strong and it's combat system is simplicity incarnate. Since I grew up with Runescape, I never saw the appeal over pushing dozens of buttons to do damage vs pushing one. When I played Halo PC, only 3 buttons did damage, shoot, grenade and melee and that game was a masterpiece. I don't see Homogenization as a big problem. Players do want simplicity and accessibility, but I also think players want more variety in the challenge levels. At the moment it's a bit binary on the difficulty, normal / extreme. Some players I think are willing to engage in more challenging content, without it being an extreme level fight.

[Nariel]

And yet the Old School Runescape is still going strong and it's combat system is simplicity incarnate. Since I grew up with Runescape, I never saw the appeal over pushing dozens of buttons to do damage vs pushing one. When I played Halo PC, only 3 buttons did damage, shoot, grenade and melee and that game was a masterpiece. I don't see Homogenization as a big problem. Players do want simplicity and accessibility, but I also think players want more variety in the challenge levels. At the moment it's a bit binary on the difficulty, normal / extreme. Some players I think are willing to engage in more challenging content, without it being an extreme level fight.

I think it isn't that binary at all. There is multiple layer of difficulty.

Dungeon are rollface easy, Primal are a bit toughter but still pretty easy, raid and raid 24 starting to be less forgivable but still safe, then you start on extreme who require to succeed at every mecanism to beat it, then you go savage where you really need to take your finger out of your ass and start git gud and then you get Ultimate where you get your ass handed to yourself evey single minute.

There is quite a spectrum of difficulty, there is not many of each maybe, but its not binary.